Big solar plants on western public land could power 7 million homes

The Department of Interior has made 285,000 acres at 17 sites in six western states, including four in Colorado, Solar Energy Zones where development of utility-scale solar projects can be fast tracked.

The aim of the zones is â€śfacilitating faster, smarter utility-scale solar development on Americaâ€™s public lands,â€ť Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, said in a statement.

The Interior Department and the Department of Energy, which also worked on the plan, estimate the sites could hold 23,700 megawatts of solar installations â€“ enough renewable energy to power 7 million American homes.

The four Colorado sites â€“ all in the San Luis Valley â€“ cover 16,309 acres.

The sites are located near transmission lines and try to avoid environmentally sensitive, scenic or historic areas. There were a total of 31 criteria â€“ including game corridors and steep slopes — that were used to eliminate land.

â€śInteriorâ€™s final solar program culminates two years of a lot of hard work and commitment by many diverse groups,â€ť Helen Oâ€™Shea, director of Natural Resources Defense Councilâ€™s Western Renewable Energy Project, said in a statement.

â€śIâ€™m hopeful that the plan will establish a roadmap that provides a balanced approach to addressing the climate change challenge and protecting wildlife and critical lands while moving our nation closer to meeting our clean energy goals,â€ť Oâ€™Shea said.

Solar industry companies, such as Bright Source, and local economic interests also voiced their support Tuesday.

California accounted for the biggest share of the zones with 153,627 acres, followed by Nevada with 60,395 acres and New Mexico with 29,964 acres.

Wow…7 million homes! That would power all the homes in the Denver Metro area. What a concept!

Gladimoutaden

It isn’t OK to have a narrow minimally intrusive pipeline running from Canada, but we can cover thousands of acres with Obamabuilt solar panels. How much money will this waste?

elg

Obama didn’t build the solar panels anymore than Bush built the pipelines. The minimally intrusive line goes over the water supply for millions of acres and the water source for hundreds of thousands people. Sorry but not everyone in Nebraska wants the pipeline, especially those who depend on the water from the formation that would be impacted by an leaks……which average about 4,000 a year over the past decade if you care to do some research.

greg

this type of solar investment is long overdue to lesson our dependence on foreign oil. it, along with wind generated energy has to be done, it’s not should it be done. it’s clean renewable energy, it’s the future of our country, and the world. the nations that don’t make these investments will be pawns to the oil producing nations in the middle east. do we really want to be tethered to countries like saudi arabia forever? cut the cord, get this going before it’s too late.

Ben Hoffman

This just in… Right-wingers to complain about it.

conservativeprof

Boutique energy alert! Solar is not baseload power so an equivalent amount of baseload power will also be needed. What will be the enormous cost of the transmission infrastructure? What about the power loss through long distance transmission? Solar power output also fails on peak energy production. Peak energy usage occurs 4 to 6PM when solar production rapidly declines especially with late afternoon clouds. What enormous levels of subsidies and mandates will be forced upon voters and ratepayers?
These boutique energy projects drain needed resources from basic energy investments: baseload power plants and grid improvements. For example, Texas ratepayers were forced to invest $10B in a far flung network of wind plants while neglecting base load power plants. These plants are capable of producing 10% of energy demand in Texas. However on typical hot summer days, they produce less than 1% leaving Texans subject to power shortages and high prices for peak power generation.

Denverite

Um, then you could resort to fossil fuel. Just get some land rights, perhaps in a foreign country, stick a tube in the ground and pay the royalties.

Besides, from the previous election, many Texas guys lost their lives serving the Bush family.

Technology will likely evolve so we don’t need to burn a hot flame to increase water pressure. The combustion engine and natural gas ideas have somewhat topped out after 120+ years. This will likely have a better TCO and better for the environment too, and safer than sending military overseas.

Denverite on Manhattan Beach

Here’s an idea, Texas Ratepayers could invade another timezone, maybe Florida, and take over some land, maybe with eminent domain, and string a wire across several states. I think this has been done before, and with political ties in Florida via Jeb Bush, some people in Florida can benefit from Texas’ inability to get sunlight all the time during primetime TV and watch/vote during American Idol.

Let’s not get too carried away with this. All the PEIS did is to create areas where the government will “fast-track” the environmental permitting process. Nothing gets built until you have a developer, a financier willing to fund a project, and, most importantly, ratepayers who are willing to shoulder the extra cost of having their utility purchase the power from one of these systems through a PPA. With Colorado’s major utility having already met the renewable standard several years early, and its renewable funding account mired in red ink, don’t look for that to happen too soon.

R. Paul Williamson

This is an excellent move and can have some very positive effects but it is indicative of the poor state of affairs we are in in this country when it comes to energy planning. Everything is done by knee-jerk decision making with little to no plan in mind. We have to get to the place where we have a national sustainable energy plan (“Winning the Energy Wars, A Sustainable Energy Plan for America’s Future”) if we are ever going to transition from finite to infinite energy resources.

fowlerhomes.com.au

Public lands in the West could gnerate enough green energy to power 7.DHA will have 668 solar photovoltaic (PV) systems installed on property sites by Boulder, Colorado-based solar PV systems installer.There are also plans to build other large solar plants in the Mojave Desert.

Jacob Chang

Not just that, http:// goo.gl/ypPaxm article stats that US Department of Energy claims that the entire global demand for energy can be met from solar panels spread over 191,817 square miles, an area that is roughly one-twentieth the size of the Sahara desert.
Just imagine how amazing is that! Cheers

Emilie Rusch covers retail and commercial real estate for The Post. A Wisconsin native and Mizzou graduate, she moved to Colorado in 2012. Before that, she worked at a small daily newspaper in South Dakota. It's the one with Mount Rushmore.